The tie makes the tyrant

Krider's neck has gone to his head when it comes to his feet

By ROB KRIDER

I’m officially all grown up now. As much as I try, I can’t deny this fact any longer. I have reached the age and the stature in life where I must be a grownup. And being a grownup, with a grownup job, means I have to wear a tie to work. I need to look nice while I’m at work these days because I’m the big boss now; therefore, I need to look “bossly.” Everyone knows that the guy with the tie is “the boss.” The tie as a uniform accouterment is used in all aspects of society from the CEO of General Electric to the manager at McDonald’s.

Even though I have a grownup job and I now sport a tie around my neck at work, I still like to play with cars. There will always be a little kid inside me who loves the sound of a big engine and thinks fart jokes are funny. Regardless of my juvenile sense of humor, I take my new wardrobe seriously. Ties are serious business. When you wear a tie, you get to say cool things like, “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean!” Ties also mean more money. I calculated that wearing a tie equals about $10,000 a year. That statistic is based on another statistic, which took a number of statistics and averaged some statistics together to give me a solid statistical number. That statistic is now a factoid, which I have bestowed upon you, and since I was wearing a tie when I told you, it is now concrete fact: A tie guarantees $10,000 annually. Don’t question me on this; I wear a tie.

Besides cash, the other thing a tie guarantees is black socks. You can’t wear a tie with sneakers. And if you’re wearing dress shoes, you can’t wear white socks. Ergo, tie = dress shoes = black socks. Transitioning to black socks created a bit of a problem for me at my house. Continually, we have a bit of a laundry issue at my household. Laundry doesn’t really get done very often at Casa de Krider. We do our laundry—it’s just done … quarterly. This means that since I only own a couple of pairs of black socks, because I have spent most of my life accumulating and wearing white socks, it is difficult—actually impossible—to find black socks to wear to work after two days of a five-day week.

Even though we are on the quarterly laundry system, my wife and kids always seem to have clean clothes (because they wash their own laundry and intentionally skip over mine), while I never have clean clothes (because I don’t do laundry). I came home one day, wearing my tie, and a pair of quite smelly black socks that had done double duty. My feet stunk and I was frustrated. So I announced to the family that there would be a big shift at our house: “New rule starting tonight!”

Nobody in my family really bothered to look up from their iPhone, iPad, or Mac to acknowledge my announcement. They were too busy being engulfed in the Apple corporate brain suck to hear a human being right in front of them. They ignored me while I was wearing a tie. Because of my tie, people at work listen when I talk. I started again, a bit louder: “I’m sick and tired of not being able to find black socks when I go to work every morning, so here’s how it’s going to work from now on.”

Still nobody really cared that I was talking, as overpriced Apple products were still rotting their brains.

“Do any of you make $100,000 a year? The kind of money that it takes to buy all of this Apple crap?” I asked.

Finally, they looked up at me.

“Until each of you brings home $100,000 a year, this is what you are going to do. When any of you do a load of laundry, put in two black socks. If you are going to wash your cheer uniform, throw in two black socks. If you are going to wash your swimming gear, put in two black socks. Is that too much to ask? Two small black socks; it won’t affect the size of your laundry load. I just want TWO BLACK SOCKS IN EVERY LOAD!”

My wife, whom I love, looked at me as if I was the biggest jerk she had every laid eyes on. She asked me, “Are you serious?”

“I’m as serious as a heart attack, which is what I’m going to have if I wake up tomorrow and can’t find two black socks to wear. I’m not asking any of you to contribute to the financial stability of our family, I am just asking for TWO BLACK SOCKS! Is that too much to ask for?”

“Well, you’re not really asking us. You’re demanding it. We aren’t your employees. We are your family. You don’t get to order us around. Take that stupid tie off, I think it is cutting off the oxygen to your brain.”

I left the room. The family thought I had become a tyrant. Maybe I had. Later I asked my son if he would take the trash cans to the curb before he went to bed. He said yes, immediately put down his iPad, and went outside to take out the trash. I had never seen him move so fast after being asked to take care of the cans. Then I heard him mutter under his breath, “I don’t want you to go all two black socks on me.”

Rob went to work today wearing one black sock and one white sock.

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